Thanksgiving and Stuff

Wow. November has flown by. We actually had a pretty quiet month. Just the run of the mill doctor's appointments for the kids and Bill and I both were able to get away for a weekend (separately) of retreat/hanging out with the boys time.

For my retreat I went to Lake Anna on the annual WOW retreat. Rev. Barbara Minor lead our program and it was wonderful! What a treat to be able to connect with God, my friends and myself without being a mom on call 24/7. I even went for a run both days! I took my camera with me, but took no pictures, I'm sorry to say.

The day I returned Hailey and Maddy had a super fun Girl Scout outing called encampment. They went on a 45 min. long hike, then built a campfire and roasted hotdogs and s'moores. It was GREAT fun. They came home smelling like a wood fire - one of the best smells known to man.

The next weekend it was Bill's turn to disappear with the boys. They went to Deep Creek Lake for their annual boys weekend. Bill was able to nap (his favorite past time) and they enjoyed some snow!

Thanksgiving day was quiet this year. Mom and Dad were to come for the weekend, but they ended up staying home due to sickness. We are very glad that we will be seeing them at Christmas and hope that everyone is healthy for the visit! With mom and dad at home and Paula sick, we postponed the Thanksgiving Feast until Saturday. We had GREAT food, Neil dubbed it the best tasting Thanksgiving Feast so far (high praise indeed). Grandma Joyce made the turkey and gravies, Paula brought the stuffing and I made the green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, spinach & artichoke dip, breads, lime cheesecake and carrot cake - we were all stuffed by the end of the night. Hailey bought Silly String for all the kids (with her birthday money) and they sprayed our tree in the front yard. It looks like Spanish Moss is dripping from the tree - they loved it! I loved being surrounded by my family. I can't think of a better way to spend Thanksgiving.

Pumpkin Patch, Great Falls and Birthday Mania

October is over?!?! How can that be, it just started yesterday. SIGH. Anyway...October was chalk full of activities. I was able to chaperone Maddy's kindergarten class at the pumpkin patch...but forgot the camera. :-( However, Laura was nice enought to bring her entire family to VA so that we could go to the pumpkin patch with them! YEA! OK, she didn't come to VA to go to the pumpkin patch with us, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :-) We went to Cox Farm, spent an arm and a leg to get in and had a blast. I think we were there for 5+ hours, but I lost track of time and my mind along the way. There were really big slides, a corn maze, kettle corn, more slides, petting zoos, hay rides and other stuff.

We had some beautiful weather in October. One day we hit Great Falls Park for a picnic and some hiking. We had a great time and Noah got some much needed attention. Samantha was just done by the end of the day. :-)

The end of October brought birthday mania. Hailey turned 8 and Samantha turned 3! I brought cupcakes into school for Hailey's class for snack one day, then we had the family birthday party for both Hailey & Samantha. Everyone came! Grandma Joyce, Emme, Nono and Great Nani, Grandpa and Grandma Ann, Paula, Neil (can you believe it? He came!!), Ian & Gavin, and Elaine. What Fun!!! Samantha requested a spider cake (she started requesting it two months in advance of her birthday!) and that is what she got. In additon to the family party, Hailey wanted to have her birthday party on Halloween, invite some friends over for a party, trick-or-treating and one lucky friend got to sleep over. Boy was it fun!

GOOD NIGHT!

I'm not sure what is going on with the picutres, but they are not posting where I want them, and of course I can't post ALL of the pictures here anyway. I will work on uploading them into albums and then inserting the links. However I wanted to throw some stuff up here for everyone!